This is from John Brown's book Puritan preaching in England; a study of past and present by John Brown (1830-1922). Having spoken of William Perkins he moves onto Henry Smith
... there
are two preachers to whom I may refer who are not unworthy to stand
out even in the searching light of that brilliant time. One of these
was Henry Smith, known as the silver-tongued preacher, and therefore,
as Thomas Fuller says, only one metal below Chrysostom, the
golden-mouthed, himself. After a brief time at Cambridge we find him
living as a student with a quaint Puritan preacher of the time,
Richard Greenham, rector of Dry Drayton in Cambridgeshire, who seems
to have thoroughly imbued him with Puritan principles. It was
probably through his influence that Smith, from conscientious
scruples on the matter of subscription, declined to undertake a
pastoral charge, and contented himself with one of those Puritan
lectureships, common then and later, which combined opportunities for
preaching with more than ordinary freedom for the preacher. Elected
in 1587 as Lecturer at St. Clement Danes, London, he quickly rose to
great popularity, and came to be spoken of as the "prime
preacher of the nation."
Wood
tells us that he came to be "esteemed the miracle and wonder of
his age, for his prodigious memory, and for his fluent, eloquent and
practical way of preaching." He was, it may be, all the more
welcome to his hearers from the fact that his sermons were almost
entirely free from those numerous divisions and subdivisions of his
subject, and from those elaborate statements of doctrine in which
other preachers of the time indulged. They were free also from that
"churchiness " of tone in which later Anglican divines
abounded; they were practical, pungent, and interspersed with vivid
and luminous character sketches.
His
theory of simplicity in preaching will commend itself to you. "There
is," said he, ''a kind of preachers risen up of late which
shroud and cover every rustical and unsavoury and childish and absurd
sermon under the name of the simple kind of teaching. But indeed to
preach simply is not to preach rudely, nor unlearnedly, nor
confusedly, but to preach plainly and perspicuously that the simplest
man may understand what is taught, as if he did hear his name."
And while he has thus a word for the preacher he has one for the
hearers too. In a sermon on "The Art of Hearing," he says
there are divers ways of hearing:
"One
is like an Athenian and hearkeneth after news; if the preacher say
anything of our armies beyond the sea, or Council at home, or matters
at court. Another cometh to gaze about the church; he hath an evil
eye which is still looking upon that from which Job did avert his
eye. Another cometh to muse; so soon as he is set he falleth into a
brown study; sometimes his mind runs on his market, sometimes on his
journey, sometimes of his suit, sometimes of his dinner, sometimes of
his sport after dinner, and the sermon is done before the man thinks
where he is. Another cometh to hear, but so soon as the preacher hath
said his prayer, he falls fast asleep, as though he had been brought
in for a corpse, and the preacher should preach at his funeral."
He is
equally keen and sarcastic on those who admire the cleverness of a
man who can take in his neighbours and make money at their expense:
"He
who can go beyond all in shifts and policy is counted the wisest man
in court and city. Oh, if Machiavel had lived in our country what a
monarch should he be! To what honour and wealth and power and credit
might he have risen unto in short time, whether he had been a lawyer
or a courtier, or a prelate! Methinks I see how many fingers would
point at him in the streets and say, There goeth a deep fellow; he
hath more wit in his little finger than the rest in their whole
body."
From his
character sketches here is one of the Flatterer:
"He
is like your shadow which doth imitate the action and gesture of your
body, which stands when you stand, and walks when you walk, and sits
when you sit, and riseth when you rise : so the flatterer doth praise
when you praise, and finds fault when you find fault, and smiles when
you smile, and frowns when you frown, and applauds you in your
doings, and soothes you in your sayings, and in all things seeks to
please your humour, till he hath sounded the depth of your devices,
that he may betray you to your greatest enemies. As the sirens sing
most sweetly when they intend your destruction, so flatterers speak
most fair when they practise most treachery. Therefore every fair
look is not to be liked, every smooth tale is not to be believed, and
every glozing tongue is not to be trusted. We must try the words
whether they come from the heart or no ; and we must try the deeds
whether they be answerable to the words or no."
On the
more solemn aspects of life this preacher can speak solemn and
searching words, as for example, when he speaks of repentance as a
matter of urgent need:
"Whether
thou be old or young, thy repentance cannot come too soon, because
thy sin is gone before. If thou lackest a spur to make thee run, see
how every day runneth away with thy life. Youth cometh upon
childhood, age cometh upon youth, death cometh upon age, with such a
swift sail, that if all our minutes were spent in mortifying
ourselves, yet our glass would be run out before we had purged half
our corruptions."
These
again are lurid and terrible words with which he describes the
anguish of remorse:
''There
is a warning conscience and a gnawing conscience. The warning
conscience cometh before sin, tlie gnawing conscience followeth after
sin. The warning conscience is often lulled asleep, but the gnawing
conscience wakeneth her again. If there be any hell in this world,
they which feel the worm of conscience gnaw upon their hearts may
truly say that they have felt the torments of hell. Who can express
that man's horror but himself? Nay, what horrors are tliere which he
cannot express himself ? Sorrows are met in his soul at a feast; and
fear, thought and anguish, divide his soul between them. All the
furies of hell leap upon his heart like a stage. Thought calleth to
fear; fear whistleth to horror; horror beckoneth to despair, and
saith, Come and help me to torment the sinner. One saith that she
cometh from this sin, and another saith that she cometh from that
sin, so he goeth through a thousand deaths and cannot die."
